Off the Wall Look at Southern Africa

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Off the Wall Look at Southern Africa Charlie Batho The lush-green and bush-friendly. New Zealand with its pastures, rain forests, glaciers and ice fields were left behind. Enter soaring heat, corruption, civil wars and The Big Five. This was southern Africa in the height ofs summer 2000 from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. Yo either love Africa or you hate it. Please state owned! And in Victoria Falls be very careful don'tmisunderstand me. Ilove Africa. Idgo howyou exchange foreign currency as it is illegal to back any time. What I try to explain here is do it on the streets despite their impossibly good the culture of southern Africa - a hard task when exchange rates. The catch is that they will plant a Sarah and I were there for only two months, but an few dud notes in your change. All the official foreign attempt based on what we saw, read, heard, touched exchange kiosks employ armed guards who stand and smelt. Much of the text may appear negative next to you as you take out your passport to exchange it isn't meant to be. It is just Africa. And that is the a small amount of money which is a month' S wages love of the experience. in those parts. Take the telephone or the internet connection in But if corruption was founded in Africa then New Zealand. Rarely indeed do you need to re-dial technically SO should football everyone plays it. a miss-connected number. Calling Zimbabwe from All countries take great pride in their teams. Soi much South Africa one afternoon took four attempts and SO that there were some casualties during the African a call to the operator asking them to check a faulty Cup of Nations football competition. This is a quote line. "There is nothing the matter with the line, 1 the from the Cape Town newspaper: operator replied. "You've only tried four times -be "General Robert Guie, military leader of the Côte patient. " And trying to check your e-mail while d' Ivorie detained the country's national football travelling through Namibia, Botswana and squad upon their return to Abidjan following their Zimbabwe sometimes took 20 minutes to download failure to qualify for the final of the African Cup of one message. Patience this is Africa! Nations. The General lectured the players on national Cape Town is an interesting place and pride and discipline forcing them to undergo military undoubtedlyoner of the great cities oft the world, lined drills in front of TV cameras. The Zambian team with golden beaches capped by Table Mountain and decided they were not going to risk a similar fate ringed by vineyards. But at 6.30pm after the office and instead of returning to Lusaka the team opted workers leave their desks, the city centre is dead, for to stay in Johannesburg, unexpectedly prolonging fear of being mugged. Why? Because street kids sleep their return. during the day and start to come out during the Heat in Africa in Februaryis: something else. After evening. One child no more than 10 years old was leaving breezy Cape Town, where the Atlantic sniffing glue in the main shopping mall at 4.30pm couples the Indian Ocean at the Cape of Goodl Hope, only a few metres from us. Clearly stoned, he ran the first day of our tour drove 750 km north across very close past me. This was a worry as we'd been the Namibian border. Every afternoon the wind told of the street kids needing to "fund" their habits. picked up over the desert. I can only describe the Another peculiar trait I Inoticed in Cape Town was experience of crossing the border into Namibia (a the number of racist dogs! Thel hostel we were staying country which has the sun pictured in its national at for a few days had a resident dog. Nearly all the flag) on a windy afternoon as tantamount to someone guests were white but nearly all the cleaners and pointing al hairdryer directly in your face. That same gardeners were black. After careful observation over day we went for a plunge in the Orange River and a few days, discovered that the dog only barked at by the time I had walked out to get my towel, two blacks. This also extended to blacks walking on the minutes away, I was totally dry all over! It is in fact pavement past the gates of the hostel. And it wasn't so hot in summer that Namibia' 'smost famous tramp, just that dog that my theory worked on. Fish River Canyon, is closed off after someone died Corruption must have been founded in Africa along of heat exhaustion earlier in the seaon, as with the human race. There was a true story in temperatures reached in excess of 50° C. The hot January 2000 of Robert Mugabe winning the lottery springs at Ais Ais were also closed as they were which was run by the Zimbabwean Bank which was literally boiling out of the ground. Tramping and Mountaineering 2000

By this time we were well into Namibia heading and SO pure in New Zealand - and sometimes SO north. Our tour was to enter Etosha National Park, underestimated. one of the most famous for wildlife in Africa, and Another striking contrast between New Zealand continue along the Angolan border (Caprivi Strip) and Namibia was experienced in a remote country before entering Botswana. I felt like Donald Woods shop. So remote was the shop in Namibia that even fleeing the apartheid ridden South Africa at the time in the height of the tourist season only ten cars and Steve Biko was murdered! The news had reported one truck passed that way each day. When asked 28 people massacred at the weekend on the howlong ago it had rained in these parts the owner Namibian-Angolan border by Unita rebels. As a replied that he thought it was about a year ago. But deterrent, Namibia had allowed Angolan troops over in the middle of this basic shop in the middle of thel border to pursue the Unita rebel resistance. This nowhere (his postal box was 80 miles away) were a was directly in our path! The President of Namibia collection of postcards, one of which was the lush was quoted as saying "Every Namibian citizen must Tennyson Inlet! I tried to explain how much rain fell ber ready to be called ont to go tol Kavango and Caprivi in Milford each year, first in metres (which he didn't to defend our citizens there. 1 y now, the USA and understand), then in terms of 8,000 millimetres UK Embassies were strongly urging its citizens to and he categorically refused to believe me. avoid the entire northern border ofNamibia. Weonly AsImentioned in the beginning, this is not meant later found out that three French tourists (children) to be a slanderous report on Africa. Ishould mention had been murdered by rebels in northern Namibia the exhilaration of standing on top of Table Mountain on3January. The parents had been spared in order looking 160 km along the sweeping coastline; Cape to pass on the news for publicity reasons. That was Point and its baboons; ship wrecks and surf; the enough for our tour guide, who had been through opportunity ofwatching hump back whales close in the Caprivi Strip ten times already, most recently in to the shore; the sound and rhythm of African December! We re-routed via southern Botswana and singing; wild desert elephants that we got within 15 the Okavango Delta. metres of ont foot; the survival of the 1,000-year-old During our trip on African Routes 18-seater truck welwitschia plant; a seal colony with 300,000 we: stopped twice to assist some fellow travellers. One inhabitants; more elephants, giraffe, rhino, gemsbok; group were two German tourists who had hired a kayaking close to hippo; lions on a recent kill with four-wheel-drive and decided to go off road to test four cubs; cheetah; the Etosha Pan; and of course outt the machine. No sooner had they gone 10 metres Victoria Falls in full flood. The highlight though was from the road than they hit quick sand and couldn't surely climbing a sand dune in the middle of nowhere get out. By the time we turned up they had sunk for sunrise and listening ever SO carefully... for down to the axle and had already waited two hours nothing. No running water, no birds, animals, since no traffic had passed (on the "motorway" of urbanisation. Pure silence. When was the last time which 90% were dirt roads). When we finally pulled that you heard absolutely nothing? them out we had gone through one tow rope and But for me it was a chance to be in the land of much rolling around in mud. one of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century, despite The second form of assistance we gave people being in jail for more than quarter of a century. A was when we were on the way to Luderitz, again in man who bet Jim Bolger a case of local wine that the middle of a desert, when our truck came across South. Africa would win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, a broken down public bus packed with local but three years later referred to him as the Australian passengers. The passengers had already waited two Prime Minister! I leave you with a quote from his hours by the time we turned up and with it being book which is pertinent to every tramper in every nearly midday, theyhad been outi in oppressive heat. country.. It is not the fact that they were SO friendly to "Ihave walked that long road to freedom. Ihave strangers that struck me; nor the fact that we gave tried not to falter: I have made missteps along the one young lady called Liberty a lift in our truck SO way. But I have discovered the secret that after she wouldn'tbel late for work - named by her father climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are after the liberation of Namibia from South Africa. many more hills to climb. Ihave taken a moment to What struck me smack in the face was, when we rest. To steal a view oft the glorious vista that surrounds offered them gallons of water from our emergency me, to look back on the distance that I have come. reserves to quench their thirst, they filled each off their But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom 40-odd water bottles SO carefully from the 4-gallon comes responsibilities, and Id dare not linger, for my drums that they hardly wasted a single drop of the long walk is not ended. Nelson Mandela Long Walk precious resource. A resource that is SO ubiquitous Tol Freedom, concluding paragraph. Tramping and Mountaineering 2000